BENNINGTON – In the corner of the operating room is a headset. In the middle is what looks like a giant robotic claw.

From his position looking through the binocular headset, Seth Bernard, a general surgeon at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), speaks to the room. His voice is amplified through loudspeakers. And as he moves the hand controls in front of him, which look almost like complex joysticks, the fingers of the claw respond with incredible precision.

He’s suturing closed the plastic film top of a tissue box.

Starting this week, patients at SVMC can go under the knife — or rather, under the da Vinci 5 robot, which Bernard controls — for operations like gallbladder and hernia surgery. If they do, Bernard said that they can expect smooth procedures and less painful recoveri

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